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San Diego Comic-Con Masquerade

Before we get to the info below, the Masquerade for this year’s Comic-Con is already full, so you’ll have to apply early next year to enter to ensure that you get an entry… Good luck to this year’s entrants and good luck to y’all that will enter next year!

Also this year’s Masquerade will be on Saturday from 8:30 PM to approximately 11:30 PM in Ballroom 20 of the Convention Center. Doors will open at 7:45 for audience seating, but get there early!! People will be lining up much earlier.

Saturday night at Comic-Con is a unique evening of fun and spectacle as the stage lights brighten, the music swells, the spotlights focus center-stage, and the 4,000+ audience that’s lined up many hours in advance take their seats for the 37th annual Masquerade costume show.

Comic-Con is a celebration of the popular arts, and costumes play a vital role in nearly all of them, from movies, TV, comic books, fantasy art, and Broadway shows to computer games, toy collectibles, and more. The Saturday night costume competition is for attendees to showcase their own amazing talents and creativity. It’s a night where you never know what will happen next, a show full of spectacle, beauty, awe, comedy, battles, song and dance, surprises, and of course many impressive and clever costumes.

Not a dance or party as the name Masquerade might imply, the event is staged in the style of a talent competition, with a Master of Ceremonies, a panel of guest judges from costume-related fields, impressive trophies and cash awards, a large raised stage with theater-style lighting, and four giant high-definition video screens providing great close-up views gathered by multiple cameras. An audience of 4,200 fills the convention center’s large ballroom to capacity, and about 2,000 more people watch the show on large video screens in the nearby Sails Pavilion and a second ballroom.

Some entries feature solo costumes, others are groups with a shared theme. Many costumes are re-creations from film, anime, games, and comics, but some completely original designs are presented as well. All genres are welcome, but no purchased costumes are allowed, as this is a contest of creativity and craftsmanship, not shopping ability. The Masters of Ceremonies will once again be the entertaining award-winning artists and writers Phil and Kaja Foglio of Studio Foglio.

Impressive Comic-Con awards, featuring our beautiful new Comic-Con Masquerade medallions, will be presented in categories of Best In Show, Judges’ Choice, Best Re-Creation, Best Original Design, Best Workmanship, Most Humorous, Most Beautiful, Best Novice, and Best Young Fan. The new Masquerade Medallions that will be given out this year is show below.

In addition, the following companies and organizations will be generously donating their own awards to outstanding costumes:

NEW ADDITIONS

Sideshow Collectibles: Do you think your costume entry into this year’s Masquerade contest will elicit lots of ooooo’s and ahhhhhh’s from the crowd? If that’s the case, you’ll be in the running to win a $350 gift card from Sideshow Collectibles for use on their web site! So bring that WOW factor to Comic-Con’s annual Masquerade contest and you might walk (or strut) away with Sideshow’s prize.

The Costume Designers Guild, Local 892, the labor union representing Hollywood Costume Designers and other costume professionals in film and television, will present to their favorite entry in the show a CDG Masquerade Award statue, a subscription to the Costume Designer magazine, and a generous gift certificate.

The David C. Copley Award for Most Innovative Costume: Oscar-nominated costume designer and David C. Copley Center director Deborah Nadoolman Landis, costume designer of Raiders of the Lost Ark, An American Werewolf in London, Coming to America, Michael Jackson’s Thriller and recently the 2010 horror-comedy Burke & Hare, and UCLA’s David C. Copley Chair in Costume Design, will present the UCLA David C. Copley Center for The Study of Costume Design Award of $250 cash, plus her book: Dressed: A Century of Hollywood Costume Design, (cover price $75) to her favorite entry.

JetMadam.com, professional jet aircraft brokers who also happen to be great fans of convention costuming, will present an award of $250 cash to the Masquerade costume entry they select as being the Most Beautiful in the show.

Anime Social Scene will award $100 cash plus prizes to the best single or group anime presentation in the Masquerade. Also, TME That’s My Entertainment will award $100 to the Best Movie Representation, plus, $100 for the People’s Favorite! Courtesy of their parent company, The Testmarket Evolution (thetestmarketevolution.com).

Frank And Son Collectible Show, of the City of Industry, CA, will present to the costume entry they deem the audience favorite a very impressive crystal trophy and $1,000 cash.

DC Comics representatives will present a special DC DIRECT collectible valued at $300 to the finest costumed entry portraying a DC Comics character or characters.

Lucasfilm Ltd. will award the best Star Wars costumers with fabulous items from their Licensing Archives. The finest entry from the Star Wars galaxy will be selected by a Lucasfilm representative to receive special limited-edition collectibles.

Century Guild will present, to the costume they select as best portraying elements of Art Nouveau or fantasy, the winner’s choice of either $200 cash or up to $400 credit for fine art at their exhibit hall booth.

Lynn Perry of DarkDesires.biz will award $150 cash to the best costume entry inspired by horror or other dark genres, such as vampires, demons, creatures of the night, creepy alien monsters, and so on.

Other companies and organizations will be joining this list as the convention approaches!